A Minor Seminary is a secondary boarding school created for the specific purpose of enrolling teenage boys who have expressed interest in becoming priests. They are generally Roman Catholic institutions, and designed to prepare boys both academically and spiritually for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. They emerged in cultures and societies where literacy was not universal, and the minor seminary was seen as a means to prepare younger boys in literacy for later entry into the major seminary. A boarding school is a school where some or all students not only study but also live, amongst their peers but away from their home and family. ... Roman Catholic priest A priest or priestess is a holy man or woman who takes an officiating role in worship of any religion, with the distinguishing characteristic of offering sacrifices. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ...
The Minor seminary is no longer very familiar in the English speaking world, as it once was in Europe. The 1917 Code of Canon law (Catholic Church) described the purpose of Minor Seminaries as: "to take care especially to protect from the contagion of the world, to train in piety, to imbue with the rudiments of literary studies, and to foster in them the seed of a divine vocation". Canon Law is the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church. ...
Suitable boys were encouraged to graduate into the Major Seminary where they would continue their tertiary studies for the priesthood. A seminary is a specialized university-like institution for the purpose of instructing students (seminarians) in theology, often in order to prepare them to become members of the clergy. ...
External links
Code of Canon Law (1983), IntraText edition with referenced concordance, hosted by the Vatican
A seminary is a specialized and usually live-in university-like institution for the purpose of instructing students (seminarians) in philosophy, theology, spirituality and the religious life, usually in order to prepare them to become members of the clergy.
The establishment of modern seminary institutions was a direct result of Roman Catholic reforms of the Counter-Reformation after the Council of Trent which insisted on the improvement of the education of clergy through the creation of seminaries as live-in instutions under the direct control of senior clergy.
While the function of the teaching seminaries and religious seminaries is different, the terminology has not changed (compare the use of "dean" in education and the use of the term "dean" in religion).
This later led, when literacy was not universal, to the creation of minorseminaries to educate young boys for the priesthood.
Minorseminaries are also being re-established by Traditionalist Catholics who use theTridentine rite in the modern United States.
The word seminary is also applied by members of the LDS Church to a school of religious education for youths ages 14-18 that accompanies normal secular education.
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